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THE FOREIGN CHILD AND 
THE PUBLIC SCHOOL 



BY 



LESLIE HAYFORD 

Field Secretary, North American Civic League for Immigrants 



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Part of an address delivered in Boston, November 11, 1910 



NORTH AMERICAN CIVIC LEAGUE FOR IMMIGRANTS 

173 State Street 

BOSTON. MASSACHUSETTS 



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The Foreign Child and the Public School 



The problem of the foreign child in the public school is the 
result of a revolution in industry during the past two or three 
generations. Cities have grown rapidly, wave on wave of immi- 
grants has flooded into the country, filling factory and tenement 
house and crowding out the play spaces of the city, so that the 
foreign quarters have become the most congested and neglected. 
Manufacture — on an enormous scale — has brought the immigrant 
man and woman and child. Rapid industrial expansion is almost 
wholly responsible for the problem of the immigrant child in the 
school. For in the readjustment of society to the changed condi- 
tions of life — to factory labor, to crowded quarters of the city, to 
the loss of home life through the economic necessity of both 
parents to become wage-earners, to the replacement of yards and 
open spaces by factories and tenement houses, to the substitution 
of the street for the natural playground — in the readjustment of 
society to these new conditions the child has been forgotten and 
his needs neglected. 

Now it is the immigrant who most inhabits the crowded sec- 
tions of the city which have resulted from this industrial change. 
And it is the immigrant child who has suffered most from this 
neglect of childhood's needs. The American child has been less 
affected. In the main, he does not live away from light and air 
and play space ; he is not given over to the street for the larger part 
of his childhood's life and training; he is not universally obliged 
to. go to work as soon as he can get working papers; economic 
necessity does not relentlessly drag him out of school and cheat him 
out of his chance in life. 



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Just what is that chance in life which should belong to every 
child? Its bare outlines are indicated by the law of the state 
which requires that every child shall be in school until he has 
reached a certain age. That law aims, I take it, to provide every 
child with the advantages of a "common school" education. 
There could have been but one reason for enacting such a law: 
it inust have been deemed necessary for the safety of the state that 
each child should have this minimum of schooling. Yet by no 
possibility can the immigrant child entering school at twelve or 
eleven or ten years of age, ill-equipped and ignorant of English, 
complete the common school course. Sonie part of the schooling 
which the state would have him obtain must be foregone — he 
hasn't time to avail himself of the full opportunity; he must earn 
a living. So he passes out into the world of work, pitifully un- 
educated and ill-equipped. 

If it is a matter of principle for the state to expect every child 
to receive a certain amount of instruction, some provision must 
be made whereby the immigrant child can get his share. It is not 
a matter which concerns the child alone, although it concerns 
him most. It is of grave import to the city and the state. These 
children in our schools are our future citizens. Into their hands 
will be placed the government of city, state and nation. What 
kind of school opportunity is theirs now, will very largely deter- 
mine what kind of citizens they become. As a matter of self- 
protection the state must see to it that compulsory education is not 
unavailing. Whatever will make the immigrant child a more 
efficient worker, a more cheerful liver, a more thoughtful neighbor, 
and a more active citizen — whatever, in short, will make him 
more economically and socially efficient — will tend to strengthen 
the state and elevate humanity. To give the immigrant child a 
square deal is not charity; it is statesmanship. 

The immigrant child is much more dependent than the native 
child upon influences outside his home for his real training. In 
the growth of industry the home life of the factory worker has 
been withered and dwarfed. The child must get his training for 
life either from the school or from the street. To put the print 



Gift- 



(Parwn) 



of the school on his character is a task big enough for the most 
phenomenal teacher that ever entered a schoolroom. There are 
so many things beyond mere scholastic training that the child 
needs with a crying need. He needs right ideals, a true concep- 
tion of life and its values, kindliness toward his fellows, sanity 
of thought and honesty of action, a love of life and a friendliness 
toward life. He needs things that will help him to get on in the 
world and things that will make him a good citizen and neighbor. 

Perhaps more than any other child, the immigrant child 
needs to have right ideals given him in school. For his ideals 
are going to have no inconsiderable influence on the attitude of 
his parents toward America. If he goes to the public school, 
what he brings home with him will be looked upon as the thought 
of that superior being, his teacher. To prevent the wrong ideals 
that the child may receive from the street, which is too largely his 
real field of life, from becoming the dominant ones, is a task of 
immeasurable difficulty. So much that is false, that is a distorted 
conception of life, is taught the child by the street that the utmost 
endeavor will be none too much to give him in school a right 
conception of life and its values. So much of neglect and harsh- 
ness, of the cold relentlessness of life, is the lot of the immigrant 
child that the school must make special effort to inspire him with 
friendliness toward life and kindliness toward his fellows — to 
make him socially efficient. In that, the attitude of the teacher 
is the vital factor. 

Besides this moulding of character, the immigrant child 
needs help in becoming economically efficient. His brief period 
in school should make him better able to earn a livelihood — 
should help him to get and to hold that job which necessity re- 
quires him to seek. In considering the problem we must not 
forget that the immigrant child is required by economic necessity 
to go to work — to earn money — at an early age. He finds that he 
cannot even wait to finish the common school course. If he must 
leave thus early, a substitute for the traditional eight or nine 
grades should be provided for him. And that substitute should 
be of economic value to him. 



But while this vocational training is essential in order that 
the foreign child may become an efficient worker, it is not more 
important; than his training in character. That is the greatest 
good he can ever get from school. In that training the teacher 
becomes a maker of Americans. She can implant what is best in 
American ideals in the immigrant child's untutored mind and 
heart. Compared with this, the mere teaching of English is un- 
important. The child might pick up English on the street; the 
forming of character cannot be trusted to ''the street, the gutter 
and the garbage box." 



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